


Days of Waiting

by iceyly



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 23:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16397282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceyly/pseuds/iceyly
Summary: One Shot - There is surprise in Naminé's eyes when she turns to see him and Riku notes the calculating twitch of DiZ's lips, but decides not to care because he is not here for either of them. He is here for Sora. To set things right.





	Days of Waiting

It takes a while until he tracks down DiZ and Naminé again – it's harder, since he is still not quite used to the cloth around his eyes, even though he has never quite lost the ability to 'see' it's still a different kind of sight and that he has been tripping over his own feet thanks to some evil and totally badly timed growth spurt for the past month doesn't help the matter any.

But now he has finally found them, led to Twilight Town through almost impossible routes that only someone who can track Darkness and Light as well as he now has learned to can find. He finds himself approving of that change of location though; Sora isn't staying in the place the Organization had known him last to be, even though they seemed to be focused on other things from what the King and he had been able to gather anyways.

Mickey is worried, he knows, and Riku is too, especially because they have finally found the Organization's objective, just a few days ago – it couldn't be more obvious, considering the faint feeling of familiarity, of power that makes his stomach twist, because no one should ever be able to make it by gathering the hearts of the fallen, and even thought he last time he had seen it, Kingdom Hearts had been nothing but a door and not a moon, he doesn't need to listen to Ansem's whisper in the back of his head to know that it's the real thing.

This is where he and the King had separated, Mickey in search of an old friend who just might be able to help them get out of this mess since they don't have Sora for that right now, Riku to do whatever is necessary to wake his best friend up, because regardless of how much he misses him, the worlds need him and if that requires Riku to work from the shadows and make a deal with the devil ( _again_ ), then so be it.

_(Because for all that the bandaged man has been helpful – or pretended to be anyways - his motivations are unknown and there is just something about him that Riku can't help but be wary of.)_

He is not afraid of the darkness and he won't be used in any way he doesn't intent himself to be used.

Not anymore. Never again.

So here he is, stepping into the mansion that they have chosen as their new hideout, following the stronger growing smell of DiZ's darkness and Naminé's almost-light up into the hidden cellar, a hand lifting to touch the glass of Donald's and Goofy's capsule in greeting just once respectively, gentle shadows trailing his every step as he walks into the white, white room where Sora is sleeping.

There is surprise in Naminé's eyes when she turns to see him and Riku notes the calculating twitch of DiZ's lips, but decides not to care because he is not here for either of them.

He is here for Sora.

To set things right.

* * *

In hindsight it probably shouldn't surprise him how easy it is to get along with Naminé. For all the wariness he might have felt towards her at first due her role in Castle Oblivion, she had been as much a victim as Sora, if not even more and even so she came to him when he had just been about to lose himself in doubt, leading him towards the path he now knows to be his own.

She smells almost like Kairi, like sea and sun and light, almost but not quite, because the lack of her heart gives her light a ting of nothingness and makes it somehow unique.

She is a not-reminder of the second friend he misses so, so terribly, that he isn't quite sure he can face, but wants to anyways, and that feeling comforts him as much as it affirms him in his longing.

DiZ does not approve, even though he doesn't say anything about the way that Riku tends to gravitate towards her white room whenever he returns from whatever mission the older man has sent him on instead of reporting first, but he doesn't need to, not with the way his gaze lingers on the back of Riku's neck.

"She is not a person. In reality, she does not even exist." he says once, when Riku passes him in the hallway.

"She was once part of someone who does." Riku replies, voice firm, allowing no further discussion.

DiZ snorts in a way that leaves no doubt that he thinks Riku is being foolish, but says nothing else.

Riku continues his way to see the girl that almost smells like the sea and the waves, a small pack of new crayons that DiZ definitely doesn't need to know about in his pocket, wondering what exactly it is they share and saddened by the knowledge that it won't be able to last.

* * *

Scouting the worlds unnoticed is becoming more and more dangerous, especially now that Axel has been set on his tracks – while he is certain that he can hold his own against the Nobody, if not best him – he can't take the risk.

The longer the Organization keeps wondering about the identity of their strange imposter, the better.

Riku likes to think that he is being careful, but between being hunted by Heartless and Nobodies alike and making sure that Xion actually has the time and space she needs to be able to make a decision without being pushed into the one or other direction by anyone, he may or may not be getting a little reckless.

Or a lot maybe, considering the frown DiZ's shoots him that one time he just has no choice but drag himself to Twilight Town and let the darkness drop him in the lobby of the mansion, trousers ripped and soaked in blood from the big gash that runs across his tight, and who knows what kind of state his cloak is in (it can't be good though; not with all the pain he feels from his back).

Naminé gasps when she sees his form, and before the world disappears into black, he thinks he sort of regrets letting her see him like this.

* * *

He is stuck there for a while, because contrary to what he has hoped, DiZ's has no potions stashed and refuses to go out into town to buy any. If not for his general dislike and hate for Nobodies, Riku might have thought he was conspiring with Naminé, especially since she keeps insisting that he should be taking a break anyways and since he's hurt he might as well do it now.

Riku has no choice but resign to this fate, because he is out of potions too, can't heal anything worse than a paper cut, the only things that Naminé can heal are beyond the physical and DiZ's can't heal anything at all. ...Or at least claims that much.

So he sits in one of the chairs in the study and stares at the ceiling, wondering just what to do with himself since he is not allowed to move more than three steps unless he wants Naminé fussing over him, until DiZ appears from somewhere and wordlessly places a stack of books and scrolls in front of him.

"Those who know nothing, can't be expected to understand anything either." is the only reply Riku gets when he shoots the older man a questioning look and even though those words sound far too much like something that Ansem would say for him not to take notice, Riku sighs and reaches for the first book.

It's not like he has anything better to do right now anyways.

* * *

Riku doesn't expect much when he starts his reading, not with the indifference DiZ regards him with when he isn't out doing-slash-planning the one or other possibly morally despicable thing to further their goal.

Therefore it takes him a moment to see the connection between the first stack of scrolls, between the fairy tales they describe, but he can't help clutching at the paper when he realizes that as different as the tales appear to be from each other, they ultimately all tell the exact same story.

Of how the worlds came to be.

After that, he regards it all with renewed interest, all these essays and books and papers on the theory of light and darkness, of how heart and soul and body connect - some familiar, because he knows he's read parts of it when he had searched for a solution to return Kairi's heart in library of Hollow Bastion.

But all he had read back then, had been the parts Maleficent and Ansem had wanted him to see, the one that had allowed them to nudge him further down the dark road. These he's reading now tell the whole story, or at least more of one and for the light-knows-how-many time he finds himself asking just who DiZ is, just who he had been before all this had started, just what he is trying to accomplish here and now.

"Why show me this?" he asks the next time the man walks by, leaving him once again with another stack of books that Riku suspects he will have absorbed by the end of the next day, because with every further piece he learns, he thinks he might start understanding just a little more.

DiZ stops in the door but doesn't turn, but there is non of usual mocking edge in his voice when he finally speaks up. "One of you will have to know. This knowledge will be the key to understanding."

Riku frowns - because 'one of you'? - but doesn't question any further. Instead he decides to read but regard it all with skepticism, because while DiZ has never made a move to try and use him like Ansem or Maleficent did, he isn't about to give him an opening for it either.

When he quietly asks Naminé about it, she looks a little uncertain, but says that maybe they can trust DiZ for now; they all have the same goal after all. Riku can't really argue, because he is trusting the older man with two very important people, isn't he, is trusting him to keep Naminé and Sora's sleeping form safe when he is out and unable to do so himself.

In the end it comes down to them all needing each other, he supposes, all three of them.

That will have to be enough for now.

* * *

It won't take long now until Sora reawakens, DiZ knows, not much by any chance.

Soon he will have his chance for revenge.

It pains him just a little that how he will use the boy, will use his heart and his friends,  _is_ using them to some extend already.

More than some extend, he supposes as he watches Riku burry himself in the studies he had assigned him, because the silver haired boy's fate is an unspoken fact in this house - every time he returns, he has edged a little further towards the Darkness, towards the thing his once prized student has become.

Riku isn't Xehanort though, and even if he does not have faith in himself, DiZ knows he will eventually drag himself fully back into the light, has known ever since Castle Oblivion.

This is why he is intent to giving him the key, the knowledge he would need, should his research data, all the knowledge he had hidden inside the sleeping boy in their cellar, ever come to surface.

The pieces are still scattered, but with every passing day they are starting to line up a little more.

Soon those days of waiting would be over and their battle against the Organization would truly begin.

_\--- FIN ---_

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment! :3


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